Seven years ago, I bought the domain name ProjectSpurs.com. Little did I know the journey that would take me on. A few weeks before that, my partner at the time and I had worked on building a Spurs website. It was supposed to serve as a San Antonio Spurs fansite with information, graphics and some news on the team we both loved.

My partner had named it Project Spurs Entertainment, which I was never a big fan of, so when I bought the name, I decided to drop the “entertainment” off the name and go ahead with Project Spurs.

Shortly after, my partner got busy with school and I took over full ownership and responsibility. At that time, I had a goal for Project Spurs, and seven years later, I can honestly say that Project Spurs has exceeded every expectation.

About 10 months in, I met Jeff Garcia, who is now my best friend and co-founder. Jeff answered a Craigslist listing for writers, submitted a post and I asked him if he was interested in guest hosting on the Spurscast, which was still in its infancy. Jeff and I recently recorded our 254th episode of the Spurscast and also celebrated our sixth year of doing the show.

I talked about goals and expectations earlier, and Jeff has been an integral part of meeting and exceeding our expectations. Without question, Jeff believed in my vision, aligned his goals with mine and together we’ve had a chance to do some great things. I’m extremely proud to have him in my corner and even prouder of his growth as a writer and leader.

Also there to assist Jeff and I is our lead editor, Paul Garcia. Paul has been with us less than a year, and in that time he went from part-time contributor to our lead writer. I saw potential in him, took a chance and Paul has validated that decision several times over and has exceeded all expectations. Paul’s tireless work ethic, and I do mean tireless, has made quite an impact.

Along the way we’ve met some very special Spurs fans in our current and past staff writers and contributors to Project Spurs. And as I said about Jeff, without their dedication, hard work and trust in us to lead them, we would not be where we are at now. We are especially proud of our current staff including our staff writers Jason Rogers, Trevor Zickgraf, Jake Faunce, and contributors Jordan Rivas, Humbie Cervera, Kyle Boenitz and Arianne Villanueva.

As if this wasn’t a long enough article, it would be extremely long if I wrote about all of our staff. I can say Jeff and I are thrilled to have them on our side and we wouldn’t be able to provide you with the content we do without them.

Seven years have really blown by, and we don’t plan on stopping soon. We have some exciting things planned out for this next year, including a new addition to the Project Spurs network.

But before I close this out, I want to thank all of the friends we’ve met along the way, including the great NBA blogging community, Bloguin for taking a chance on us and our readers and listeners. We are humbled that you choose to take time out of your busy schedules to read our posts and listen to our podcasts and you give us a reason to continue growing and improving.

About Michael A. De Leon

Michael founded Project Spurs in 2004. He started The Spurscast, the first Spurs podcast on the Internet, in 2005. Michael has been interviewed by the BBC, SportTalk, the Sports Reporters Radio Show, MemphisSportLive, OKC Sports Wrap and ESPN radio among others. He is a credentialed member of the media for the San Antonio Spurs and Austin Toros. He is also the founder of Project Spurs' sister sites, Toros Nation and Stars Hoops.